Outdoor Natural Playspaces

Our outdoor natural playspaces are an important part of our emergent curriculum. The educators and children both enjoy exploring and making discoveries about the world in the environment that nature provides. Being in nature enhances all areas of a child's development as well as the health and well-being of both children and educators. We aim to be outdoors as much as we can throughout our day to reap these benefits.

Nature provides wonderful, hands-on opportunities for children to learn through their senses. It's both an environment for active play and a place for peaceful tranquility.

Children learn to be creative, develop language, become leaders, and work in teams as they lead group projects, building dams, bridges, spaceships, and forts. They learn about life cycles, respect, responsibility, as well as how to defer gratification as they take care of the plants, vegetables and wildlife that visit the gardens. Our gardens, pathways, loose parts (logs, stones, bark, wheels etc), trees, teepee, outdoor musical instruments, and water feature provide a hands-on learning environment that instills a lifelong love of learning and respect for nature – a unique experience in the core of the city.